00:05 Program theme
Let's take a look. You take a look inside the book. Take a look. You....
00:24 Frances
Hello, and welcome to hear this. I'm Frances Keeland, and you're listening to the Vision Australia Library radio show, where we talk about books in the Vision Australia collection. But be aware also, there's newspapers. There's magazines... there's Braille. Lots and lots of ways that you can listen to our material. So let's start the show. Talking to Maureen O'Reilly, community engagement coordinator. Here we are once again with Maureen O'Reilly, talking about things [st the] Vision Australia library. Hi, Maureen.
00:59 Maureen
Hello. How are you Frances?
01:01 Frances
I'm good, thank you. We're having a bit of a hot spell of weather down here in Melbourne.
01:05 Maureen
I know it's like the summers from when I was a kid. I remember them being really, really hot and it's been, apart from the odd little spurt every now and then, very mild I feel. Yeah. So this year we've got an old school summer.
01:19 Frances
Yes. Those endless days of yeah hot. The library is pretty much in the new year now. So how are things going?
01:28 Maureen
We are we are just back in the swing of things. Everything's going. And it's funny, we had a little hiatus over Christmas and now everything's going live. So it's lovely because all that planning that we did at the end of last year, you're now seeing it come to fruition like a little plant that you are watering.
01:45 Frances
Good on you. And what's coming up?
01:47 Maureen
Well, we're in the midst at the moment of our Let's Get Creative with Fiction Writing course, which is our first writing course for the year with Andrew Rowe. And that is just amazing. I've had so much positive feedback and it's really exciting And we have a lot of new names. So when I look at the registrations and I think we had nearly 50 before, I had to stop it and put a block on it all. Probably 90% of them are new names, so they're all library members, but they're the library members who normally just download the books, or the Braille or the newspapers or the magazines, and they're not so actively involved in our programs. So it's really exciting. I think maybe everyone had a New Year's resolution to do one of our courses, so...
02:35 Frances
Oh, that's great. And they sound very inspirational, the courses.
02:38 Maureen
Andrea Rowe is amazing. So she does do other types of writing, but she's best known, I think, for her children's books, and she's just this wealth of enthusiasm and energy. And I'm just so envious. I don't know how many cups of coffee I'd have to have to have that much energy.
02:58 Frances
Yeah, some people are just like that.
03:01 Maureen
So that's going really, really well. So that's a great start for our writing courses - and we have our next writing course, which is open for registrations now, which is one that we have brought back by popular demand, which is to discover the foundations on which to build your poetry. So it's a lovely poetry workshop. It's with a facilitator that we used last time we ran the poetry workshop, which was two years ago, back in March, 23 - Maria Takolander - and we had wonderful feedback on Maria.
So I am sure everyone will love this course. She's going through traditional poetry styles or... formats. And then on another week she's going through much more contemporary poetry and looking at all the different ways there. And then on the final session of the three week course are people are encouraged to submit a piece of poetry, which can then be workshopped by the group. So it's like a sitting around in a wonderful poetry reading, but it will be online and everyone gets to share their poetry. And people can ask questions or just say how much they enjoyed it. Or you can have somebody else read it out on your behalf if you prefer.
So yeah, it'll be lovely. We've had a lot at the end of all of our courses. We do a survey and we say, What else would you like us to do in the future? And we've had a lot of requests to do another poetry course. So very pleased to have this one up and going.
04:34 Frances
I've got lots of books in the library. Poetry read by some wonderful people. Yeah.
04:39 Maureen
And the thing I like about poetry is it's very accessible. So the idea of writing a whole book can be very, very overwhelming. And even the idea of writing a novel or novella, that's the word I was looking for. Again, that can be very intimidating or a memoir because there's so much to go through and then to cull it down and then trying not to offend people. But a poem can be just as meaningful and hold just as much history, but is usually a much shorter format. So I think not as foreboding for people to launch into poetry.
05:18 Frances
And poetry can be very personal, but you can create it from a distance as well, because you're honing and shaping, shaping it.
05:27 Maureen
And I find poetry often, not always. It's full of metaphors as well, which if people are dealing with something very personal or something a bit traumatising, they can write about it without it seeming that raw.
05:43 Frances
So yes, that's exactly what I meant. You know, you couldn't read a book full of metaphors. It would just be exhausting for the reader and yourself to come up with them. But in a poem, you can do that.
05:51 Maureen
And it's just, I think, a safer way for people who are trying to deal with trauma or to deal with loss, or it's just a slightly safer way because it's just that little bit third person. Yeah. Not talking about AI. It's talking about, some other metaphor that they've... sort of channelled those emotions into.
06:13 Frances
So poetry, it taps into that universal human condition.
06:17 Maureen
And it's something that everybody can write about. I mean, you can have ones that are comedic. You can have ones that are written for children. You can have ones that are highly personal for yourself, and they can be like a little miniature memoir. They could be just about one... incident in your life. And I think there's there's a lot of opportunities in there.
06:40 Frances
Yes. You've got me excited now. I remember poems from my past that hit at the right time. So thank you.
06:47 Maureen
Well, this will be a three week course and it will all be online. And that's starting on the 6th of May. So I really encourage people to come on board, because I've got so much feedback from our creative fiction writing course, from all these people that had never done one of our writing courses before and we have just been blown away. So I'm hoping that inspires our other listeners to say, yes, I'll give it a go this year.
07:12 Frances
And what else is coming up?
07:14 Maureen
Well, we've just finished our in conversation with Emily Maguire. So our next In Conversations that are coming up are a double barrelled one. So we have two on the same day for the Melbourne Writers Festival. So that will be on the 9th of May, which is a Friday. And it will be a hybrid event. So people can come into the Vision Australia offices in Kooyong, or they can log in via Zoom at home and they can listen to it live, either in person or from the comfort of their own armchair. And we will have two authors, and we'll have one that's coming on at 6:00 for an hour. And then if you're fortunate enough to be in Melbourne, uh, there'll be a book signing and so forth afterwards.
And then we have another one at 8 p.m.. So if people are working or they find it harder to get to that earlier one, or if people just find they get very tired at the end of the night and 8 p.m. is a bit late, they can go to the earlier one or they can do both. But I can't tell you who they are at the moment, so you have to watch the space, but that'll be lovely. It's always a wonderful event and it's great to be able to offer something that's in person for people that are able to come in as well.
08:26 Frances
Yes, absolutely. We wait with bated breath.
08:29 Maureen
Oh you will. And then we also have our book chat with the Vision Australia librarians, which we launched in February, which was our Sun Kissed Summer book chat which was hugely popular. We had, I think, nearly 40 registrations. And Sarah Bladon, who is our Vision Australia manager, reviewed two books. I reviewed a book, then Euan, who's my colleague, reviewed a book and in fact our children's librarian Kylie came along as well and she reviewed a book. And then the majority of the people who attended also provided us a book review as well, so it was really good. It was a great success.
So our next one of those is scheduled for autumn. So it's our autumnal April book chat with the Vision Australia librarians. So it will be the same format. Uh V will be hosting that from community engagement at the library. And then we'll also have Kylie, who's our children's librarian. But she does assure me she reads more things than just children's books. And then everybody that comes along has the opportunity to give a review of a new release book they've been reading or just... their most recent read or their most favourite... read. That's the word.
The plan is that everybody who's in attendance will walk away with that list of books that they'd really like to read, and also some books that they know they don't want to so they don't have to go, Oh, I'll give that a go, because we'll give them the heads up and they can say, no, that's not really for me. So that is a really accessible event that we run. Essentially, if you read a book, then you can come along and you can tell us about that book. And it's not... interactive as in other people won't really be asking you questions. So you just get to hold the mic, do your promo on the book, what you liked about it, what you didn't like, what you liked about the author.
And if you don't actually feel comfortable doing a review, you don't need to because all the chatty ones need an audience. So you can just be there listening and taking notes on all the books.
10:40 Frances
That's wonderful. And also, could I just ask with the summer reads? Yes, is there a list anywhere of the books?
10:48 Maureen
Not from that, but we do have a book list that is up on our news page and I will go to that right now. So on the Vision Australia website, when you scroll down, there's a section called Library News. So we have up there a number of reading lists we put together. We put one up in September last year, which was Biographies and memoirs in the Vision Australia Library, and it gives you the list of the books and also a proceeds of those books.
We also then had a whizzbang new one that went up in November, end of November, which was holiday travel reads in the Vision Australia Library. So that was designed for people who can't necessarily go away on a holiday themselves over summer, so they can vicariously travel the world. And again, it has a list of books and a bit of a price of the book, so you can decide which ones you're interested in.
And then what we also put up last week was a wonderful book list for International Women's Day. So we as a library, we are definitively staunch supporters of female authors, but not purely because of their gender, not just because they're female, but because there are authors who write insightful and powerful and enthralling books. So we really encouraged everyone in the lead up and also post International Women's Day. Whether your favorite genre is mystery, science fiction, romance, non-fiction, that there's a female author out there making her mark on literary history. So we've put up a list of books by really impressive female authors.
For me, that's a great way for people to celebrate our International Women's Day by reading an intriguing new book by a female author they may not have encountered before.
12:48 Frances
Fantastic. And did you enjoy International Women's Day? Did you do anything special For International Women's Day?
12:53 Maureen
I actually... well, I ran around during the day. It was very warm in Melbourne, but I went out, which is very rare for me as a mother of three children to an event that was in the botanical gardens, and it was really quite a small musical event, and it had Vika and Linda Bull, who are two of my favorite musicians, and they were just amazing. And we were just sitting on a rug, had a little bit of food, might have had a glass of wine, and they were seriously only probably about 20m in front of me singing. And I got up and danced and it was just wonderful.
13:28 Frances
Look, I cannot actually remember because I think I got the date wrong anyway, but I've been reading one of the quirkiest and loveliest authors that I know of, Jess Kidd. There's about three books in the library himself, The Hoarder, and the one I've just read, Things in Jars. She writes beautifully about... mysteries and supernatural kind of fiction, but they're very literary and very beautiful, and the depth of her human understanding and the ghosts are wonderful.
In this particular book, Things in Jars, there's a character who is this some woman who helps solve these mysteries in Victorian London. But she has this ghost that's a bit enamoured of her. Of course, there's nothing that can happen. He's a ghost, but he's... an ex-boxer who died on the ring in Victorian London, and he's this melancholy soul, and he's got covered in tattoos, and the tattoos have the life of their own. Like there's a mermaid on his shoulder that, you know, bites her nails and flicks her tail and, and she can sort of see this beautiful, semi-transparent figure. And he helps her solve the mysteries as well and tries to look after her.
14:38 Maureen
I think that's really lovely. So what is it called?
14:41 Frances
It's called Things in Jars, and it's by Jess Kidd, an Irish writer. So I have been reading that and really loving it.
14:50 Maureen
Oh, good. Well, in terms of what I've been reading since we're going onto that path now, I have been reading Jacqueline Bublitz's second novel, Leave the Girls Behind.
15:00 Frances
Yeah.
15:00 Maureen
So, Jacqueline's. Well, I'm sure she's been writing forever, but comparatively new author. She put out her first novel in 2021, which was Before You Knew My Name, and that was just award winning double figure awards, including winner of the Australian Book Industry Award for General Fiction, an amazing debut novel. I mean, you'd have to be very happy with those results.
15:27 Frances
Yes, yes.
15:28 Maureen
So determined not to be a one hit wonder, Jacqueline is back and she's written a second novel, Leave the Girls Behind. So I'm working my way through that at the moment with a view to the fact that we have Jacqueline coming in for an amazing event on the 24th of March. And when I say coming in, I mean coming online, not actually coming in. It's a brand new event for the Vision Australia library. So this is our author reading. So we have had a lot of feedback. Everyone is very positive about our in conversations, but constantly the feedback we get is that they would have loved to hear the author read part of their book.
But given the fact that all my conversations run over as it is, we just don't have time to have that author reading component. So we've put up an entirely different series, which is a little bit like an in conversation, so I'll have a bit of a delve into Jacqueline's background. What led her into writing, what was the journey through to her highly successful debut novel? And then we'll have a brief discussion with, you know, no spoiler alerts on her second novel, and then she's going to choose... either her favourite part or a particularly enthralling, I suppose, riveting part of the book.
And she's going to read to us for 20 minutes from that book. So we all get to sit back and relax and be read to. But I don't think it's going to be that relaxing given the type of book it is. Yeah.
17:01 Frances
Yeah. Her novel, the first novel had great acclaim, and it's also for people who think, Oh, mystery writers... and there's always, you know, violence and, you know, people, women getting killed quite often. She writes from a very different perspective. There are women, but she writes very much from the women's point of view in her book. So yeah.
17:23 Maureen
Yeah. My. And I'm not very good at describing plots without putting spoilers in, so I'm always very nervous. But my interpretation of her books is that it's written more from the perspective of the victims nearly exactly, and the victim not just being the actual person who has been murdered, but their family and their friends and the ones that were left behind. So it doesn't actually give the power to the... murderer. Mm... which often I find those crime fiction books do, it's all about this very imposing, powerful person who can wreak havoc at any moment. Her books don't tend, in my mind, to give them the power. The story is sitting very much with the victims.
18:18 Frances
Yes, it doesn't prey on that very popular trope of... women can't escape because there's these men are superior in intelligence and intellect and, you know, power and all of that. So... yeah, it is, you're quite right. And gives the woman a story that...
18:36 Maureen
And it's not always the men who are murderers. A lot of the stories will also have women.
18:40 Frances
That's true.
18:41 Maureen
Yeah. The... often the power in the story and the focus on the story is on that perpetrator. Whereas I find in Jacqueline's books that the maybe not the power, but definitely the focus is more on... the victim, but also their family and their friends and so forth. It's... a very skewed approach. But her books are, you know, they're unquestionably... terrifying for me because I'm not a great person on coping with such things. Yeah, and it's not surprising, given she says that she has a lovely habit of hanging around morgues and exploring dark corners of New York City's parks. So that's a... certain type of mindset. Doing some research there.
19:28 Frances
Yes, yes. I remember Lynda La Plante in an interview, another fantastic British author talking about her methods of, you know, going into morgues. And but that's why they write so wonderfully as well as they do.
19:40 Maureen
That's why it's got so much authenticity about it. Yeah. So we will be with Jacqueline at 1230 in Melbourne time on the 24th of March. So I really encourage people to come because it'll have the elements of an in conversation, which everybody enjoys. But then I'll have 20 minutes of this very suspense filled reading by Jacqueline, and I think, who could possibly read a story and read characters better than the person who created them. So I think it would be really, really fascinating. Yeah. And then everyone can put questions in the chat and questions when they're registering. And then we'll fire all those questions at Jacqueline as well.
20:22 Frances
And it'd be lovely. Yeah.
20:23 Maureen
And we get to sit back and just enjoy on the edge of our seats probably, a reading. And as adults, you know, you don't get to be read to like that that often. I mean, obviously, our members listen to audiobooks, but there's something different from listening to an audiobook to somebody actually reading to you. It somehow seems a little bit more personal.
20:48 Frances
So if anybody has any reflections on listening to audiobooks and listening to people reading, maybe you've got some reminiscences about people having read to you as a child. You know, we're always open to getting that sort of feedback at the library.
21:03 Maureen
Oh we are. We'd love it if you could send any emails along those lines through to Vision Australia Library at Vision australia.org, and all of those will come through. And if any of them are specifically for Francis, we will make sure that we get them to her as well. And it's a great way of helping us shape the library, because one of the things I always say to our members is that the Vision Australia Library, unlike most public libraries, it's very much a members library. So our catalogue is shaped by the requests and the suggestions that people put through.
When you look at our catalogue, there is definitely a disproportionate number of books that are autobiographies and crime fiction, because that is what our listeners always and our members are always requesting. So it's very much shaped by the people who are using the library. So if you've got thoughts or opinions, please send them through.
22:06 Frances
Absolutely. And also the important thing about libraries is that they are funded by the amount of people that are members of that library. So on a very practical and mercenary level, our libraries are, get funded because of the members.
22:23 Maureen
So definitely. And that's one of the things that's really important is that we have an active membership that's growing and that we're meeting those members needs so that they don't just become a library member, but they become an active library member. And that's a really important to us. We don't just want people to be a member. We want them to be actively borrowing books and magazines and newspapers and listening to podcasts and coming to our in conversations and our author readings and our writing programs, and really being part of that library community.
23:02 Frances
So if you're listening and you've listened to the show maybe a couple of times, and you have a print disability of any sort, give the library a call - because you may be able to join the library and just... you know, get these wonderful books and material that they offer.
23:15 Maureen
And you don't just need to be... vision impaired or blind, which is what a lot of people think... the Vision Australia library is also for people with a print disability. So that essentially means that you find it difficult or impossible to read a hard copy paper book. So that may be because... there's a physical disability... you might be an amputee. You might have an eye condition where it's difficult to focus on the page. A lot of our members are dyslexic. So you may have a cognitive issue. So there's a number of conditions which would qualify under the banner of a print disability. And they're not all being blind or low vision.
24:04 Frances
Absolutely. Thank you.
24:06 Maureen
It's about making our books accessible to everybody who wants to read them.
24:11 Frances
Yeah. Thanks, Maureen. Is there anything else? We've sort of wandered all over the place today, but it's been lovely.
24:17 Maureen
We did wander. We love a good wander. No, I think that's it. So my main things that I would do would be encourage everyone to join us for our brand new author reading with Jacqueline, because we're sure that's going to be loads of fun. And that's on the 24th of March, or with some of our avid readers. Would love to join us for our April book chat with the Vision and Australia librarians. And that's on the 10th of April. And that's really easy. That's your two minutes of fame with a microphone. And then the other one would be the Poetry Workshop.
But my one thing to say is, even though it's the 6th of May, I really encourage people to register early because our creative fiction writing are I was oversubscribed and we took as many people as we possibly could. But in the end we had to close registrations. So if you love poetry and you'd like to learn some more about writing either in traditional or modern styles, then please, please go to the Vision Australia website which is Visionaustralia.org/library. Go down to the What's On section and put in your registration for the poetry workshop.
25:31 Frances
Good advice and next time we see you... oh I don't know, might might be a bit longer -but finding out about the Melbourne Writers Festival.
25:40 Maureen
I will be able to tell you next time. Yeah I will, I'll be able to tell you who are two wonderful, wonderful authors are. And one of them I know is very, very, very popular with our Vision Australia Library members. So there will be a lot of library members going, Yay! So we have a lot of her books and they are very frequently borrowed. So and the other one is going to be amazing. Possibly not one that everybody's familiar with, but I think it's always very good to put yourself out there. And again, I won't even give a gender, but this person is a prolific writer. Absolutely amazing.
26:22 Frances
Oh God, I'm all excited. Thank you, Maureen, for coming in.
26:25 Maureen
Thanks for having me again. I love coming in here. It's my favourite part of the month.
26:28 Frances
Yeah, and it's air conditioned.
26:30 Maureen
I know.
26:31 Frances
Thanks. Have a lovely. Have a lovely month.
26:34 Maureen
Thanks, Frances. Bye bye.
26:40 Frances
Thank you for joining us on here this. And thanks to Maureen O'Reilly, community engagement coordinator. Yes. If you are listening to the show, I'm always giving the phone number and the email address at the end of the program, hoping that there's always going to be people out there that go, yeah, I'm going to join that library. I'm going to ring them up and ask some questions. I'm going to I'm going to email them and anything like that. We always welcome new members because it keeps the voice of the library strong in the community.
And so people with a print disability, please give us a call and find out how the library can best support you. Our phone number is 1300 654 656. That's 1300 654 656. Or you can email the library@visionaustralia.org - that's library at Vision Australia dot org. But also thinking about, yeah, do you have any memories of people reading to you... or your first audio book that you listened to that made you think, I love audiobooks, or the first Braille book that you read? If you're a child or a later learner of Braille, there may have been a point where you got that book that set you off on a lifelong journey of reading. Just let us know. We'd love to hear from you.
Have a great week and we'll be back next week with more Hear This.
